US to award $2 billion to quantum computing firms and take equity stakes, WSJ reports

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US to award $2 billion to quantum computing firms and take equity stakes, WSJ reports.

general :: 3hrs ago :: source - reuters

By Reuters

(Reuters) - The Trump administration is awarding $2 billion in grants to nine quantum-computing companies in deals ‌that include the U.S. government taking equity stakes, ‌the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing the Commerce Department.

The department has agreed to give $1 billion of the package to IBM, while GlobalFoundries will receive $375 million, according to the report.

The remaining firms, including D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing and Infleqtion, ‌are expected to receive $100 ⁠million each, while startup Diraq may receive $38 million, according to the WSJ report.

The investments would ⁠extend the Trump administration's push to take equity stakes in companies considered critical to the domestic supply chain as well as to counter China's dominance in certain sectors, including ‌chipmaking.

It has already taken big stakes in companies such as Intel and MP Materials, a rare earth mining company.

Quantum computers harness the laws of quantum mechanics to process information exponentially faster than traditional supercomputers for handling complex mathematical ‌problems.

But existing quantum computers dedicate so much of their computing power to fixing errors that they are not, on net, faster than ‌classical computers.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, IBM, GlobalFoundries, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Infleqtion did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Shares of companies that are part ‌of the deal rose between 7% and 21% in premarket trading.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)

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